Stacy was kind enough to find a ride to First Thursday in an automobile large enough to carry away a giant, foam credit card costume.

Go free young credit card. Ride into the night with Stacy and fill up her stupid closets with your credit card-ness!

My annoying follow up questions for Stacy because I am too lazy to think of something entertaining to write about our trade which just involved standing in the hallway of my art studio, next to the bathroom with Stacy wearing the credit card costume, waiting for someone to come out of the bathroom so we could scare them and then being disappointed because the person who came out was just my husband who is already very familiar with the credit card costume, having had to cart it around town in his trunk and also lug it up to the loft and then back down again when I finally got a trade offer for it and who was not in the least bit scared by our antics:

Q. What inspired the fangs on the tomato?

A. You know, I don't remember. I've always had a rather whimsical turn to my artwork... and these pieces were done quite a while ago... and I've rather enthusiastically killed off a lot of brain cells since then...

Q. Do you have any copies of the old cartoon? In our email exchanges, Stacy explained that she used to be a cartoonist.

A. I do have copies of the old cartoon. Somewhere. I'll try to unearth them to play show and tell with. I could also quickly sketch out the character (s).. (she did neither...eh hem...I assume at least, because I forgot to ask when I met her in person).

Q. Did you grow up in Minnesota?

A. Yup.

Q. If so did you play duck duck goose or duck duck grey duck (this is my test to see if people who say they are from Minnesota are lying to me. Minnesota is the only state in our great union where children play duck duck grey duck instead of duck duck goose. And good luck trying to find out why. I've tried for years. I even wrote Oprah to see if she could put an end to the mystery. Nothing. I finally wrote my own children's story that explains why called "Oxen Potty" that has, for some odd reason, never been published)?

A. I wasn't very popular, so I didn't play much of anything. I'd usually be off in a corner reading and plotting.. The other kids played duck duck grey duck. (she passed --Rosalie)

Q. How fast did you get out of Minnesota?

A. I wound up going to school at the University of Minnesota in Duluth, where I learned that hell isn't all flames and magma - it's cold and icebound. I didn't get out until two years after I graduated.. Then I moved to Colorado, damaged a few young minds, and moved here to Seattle.

Q. Have you ever fallen down in public? (if yes, please elaborate).

A. Oh yes. Many a time. Notably, the one and only time I ever tried to snowboard. The dear boy who was trying to impress me at the time took me to A-Basin in Colorado. I did ok, until I caught the edge of the board funny on some ice, and rolled and thumped and bumped a ways down the mountain. I laid there with my hands over my bottom, whimpering. I eventually got up and tried to board down a little more, but I fell again (I'd been falling more or less all day) - but this time it HURT. The guy had to get a ski patrol on a snowmobile to take me down to the lodge, butt-up, where I was examined and told I'd probably cracked my tailbone. The following Monday at school was a little rough... My students thought the whole story was hilarious...